Early voting expected to begin Tuesday

Thursday

Ohio officials are preparing for early voting to begin on Tuesday for the Nov.?8 general election because a challenge to a new election-reform law is expected to put the law on hold today.

Ohio officials are preparing for early voting to begin on Tuesday for the Nov.?8 general election because a challenge to a new election-reform law is expected to put the law on hold today.

Even though House Bill 194 is scheduled to become effective on Friday, county boards of election have girded for the possibility that it will be delayed and the election will be conducted under current state law, which permits more time for absentee and in-person voting.

“I am absolutely confident that our county boards will be just fine and ready to go,” said Dale Fellows, president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, which represents the 88 county boards of election.

“We’ve been planning for this,” said Nathan Burd, executive director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. “We will be ready for early voting Tuesday.”

Opponents of the new elections law say they have collected enough signatures to challenge it at the November 2012 election and hold it in abeyance until voters decide its fate.

A Statehouse news conference is scheduled for today by Fair Elections Ohio to announce that it has at least the 231,324 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters needed for a referendum on the House bill, signed July 1 by Gov. John Kasich.

Brian Rothenberg, executive director of ProgressOhio and spokesman for Fair Elections Ohio, would not reveal the number of signatures gathered, but he said, “We’re way ahead of projections, and we expect to have a good day” today.

Once the signatures are turned over to the Ohio secretary of state, the new law automatically will be put on hold. The signatures then will be sent to the 88 county election boards to be validated, a process estimated to take 10 to 15 days. If Fair Elections Ohio comes up short after the county boards’ count, it would have 10 days to gather more signatures.

Rothenberg said the coalition will continue collecting signatures while the county boards are counting to ensure there will be enough for a November 2012 referendum on the election law.

Fair Elections Ohio — a coalition including the Ohio Democratic Party and Organizing for America, which is President Barack Obama’s re-election arm — said the Republican-championed law is an attempt to suppress voter turnout.

Among other things, the law cuts early voting from 35 days before the election to 21 days by mail and 17 in person. It also limits in-person voting before the election by barring it on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and the three days prior to the election. If House Bill 194 were to take effect on Friday, voting by mail would begin on Oct.?18; in-person voting on Oct. 22.

But the mere filing of the repeal petition today would put the new law on hold, giving way to the current law’s 35-day early-voting window. That means both absentee and in-person voting would begin at county boards on Tuesday.

Burd said the Franklin County board will be ready, but it won’t be easy amid preparations for Nov. 8 balloting.

“The hardship we’re going to face is checking all the petition signatures at the same time we’re starting early voting and doing everything else for this election,” Burd said. “But we’ll be able to get it done.”

He said the county board will meet on Monday to schedule early-voting hours at its 280 E. Broad St. headquarters.

Other central Ohio elections boards also are prepared for voting Tuesday.

“We’re ready to go for Oct. 4 and, hopefully, everything goes smoothly for voters,” said Susan Bloom, director of the Fairfield County Board of Elections.

Sue Penick, director of the Licking County Board of Elections, said plans were made for either the new or current law to be in effect.

“We had to be prepared for both instances,” Penick said. “Obviously, if the new law went into effect it would be easier.”

House Bill 194 would have moved Ohio’s presidential primary to May, but it will remain on March 6 under current law. That means the filing deadline for candidates will be Dec. 7.

Lawmakers allocated $2.75?million to the county boards so they could notify residents about which legislative districts they’ll be voting in and make other preparations for the March primary.

But Fellows said preparations for the March 7 election could be “in limbo” if Democrats follow through on their threat to legally challenge the GOP-drawn congressional districts.

Alex Stuckey, a fellow in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News Bureau, contributed to this story.

jhallett@dispatch.com

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